


Words For What's Missing

by Etnoe



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Loyalty, M/M, Phone Calls & Telephones, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 21:58:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5944681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etnoe/pseuds/Etnoe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur had been asleep. He probably wasn't asleep any longer. The voice over the phone nonetheless had the overbright clarity of a constructed dream; of something that you <em>wanted</em> to take up most of your senses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Words For What's Missing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fullmoon02](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fullmoon02/gifts).



* * *

  
"I can't forget about you."

Arthur had been asleep. He probably wasn't asleep any longer. The voice over the cellphone nonetheless had the overly bright clarity of a constructed dream; of something that you _wanted_ to take up most of your senses. And of course, in his experience, it followed that someone had noticed what you wanted built up around you.

The ringtone had woken him up sharply, his body treating it as a signal for possible danger, and now there was too much adrenaline in his system for him to get embarrassed yet. He didn't bother getting his totem either, though as he sat up in bed his eyes flicked to the jacket draped over the motel desk chair, the left pocket, where he'd left it. The motel he was sleeping in was not the kind of place you actually had a burning need to dedicate any part of your awareness to, which had made it a fairly good choice in terms of not flaunting his earnings from the inception job. If this were a dream it would have come down to the voice ... he really did want Dom's voice.

"Forget? It's only been a month. Why would you?" Arthur asked.

"Exactly, why would I?" Dom said, and started to go off and spin a scenario, as was his habit. "What could possibly induce that? I didn't have _that_ much of Yusuf's finest." Dom made a warm sound - laughter murmured into Arthur's ear, close enough to curl his fingers into his sheets as the sensation cascaded down his nerves and its message was transmuted. That little sound was out of character, almost, unless you rewound a few years. He took those memories as assurance for this moment and shoved down the rest of what they made him feel.

"It hasn't been that long but I hate the thought of how easy it is for time to pass, even for someone you think about daily. And so there's no excuse not to call, not to hear from you, to make you an offer."

"Dom! You want to talk business?" Arthur said sharply, and then chose a new subject - he was the guy who managed things, after all. He softened his tone. "You settled in? Everything's okay at home?"

"I'd sound significantly crazier than I suspect you think I sound already, if things weren't okay here."

Arthur made an exasperated sound and hoped it said enough for enough innocence that Dom would be willing to let that line of thought go.

"Call it a moment of inspiration," Dom told him. "It might have been building through this month we've been separated, but the thunderbolt came now. I don't think that ... it's not that I miss the back-up, the shadow-like loyalty, the familiar voice in my mind. Well, you were the _other_ voice, but still; with all the work we did, you did practically have timeshare." The laughter this time barely papered over the pain that was Mal's due. Now this was a lot more familiar. "It's that I owe you, Arthur, and for more than I realised for most of the time that we were together."

"Wow. You've got a really nice script going. Poetic." Arthur watched the sunlight angle across the room through the half-open blinds. It was hard now to shove down physical reactions so his mouth wouldn't go too dry to speak properly, and the thoughts that wanted to throw him completely off-kilter. "You _have_ been thinking about this. Way too much thinking about this. I recognise the signs."

"Of course you do." Dom sighed in something like satisfaction, and Arthur stared really hard at the blinds and the light. It wasn't that he truly, actively wanted to see shadows pass by so that he could get up to check them out - pretend he'd been found by some mooks of people they'd got on the wrong side of over the years, and hang up - but it would definitely be a thorough distraction right about now.

"Do you want out of the business too? Do you want to stay in? You have to at least come by for dinner. Please." Dom's voice turned serious. "I don't have Saito's clout to rely on, not when he's still recovering, but, Arthur, if I can help..."

"No, just--absolutely not. Don't get involved with me again, Dom. It's dangerous to what your life is now. To you, and to them." He doesn't even want to take the chance of naming them and dragging them into this nearly bizarre morning in some capacity.

"You mean to my family? What do you think you are to me, if not that?"

"Good. Fine. Put that aside. It's still impractical." That assessment came out perfectly normal, and then Arthur bent down and rested his arms on his pulled-up knees, hands shaking enough for a few seconds that he had to concentrate to make sure he kept hold of the phone. A sharp spring in the mattress made itself known under his left foot, and the sting was almost welcome. 'Family'. Fuck. All right. Yes. Thank you. Of course he was, after all this time with Dom, and back then with Mal and the kids too - and of course he wasn't, until this moment that he was so firmly pulled in with that word, a claiming and a confirmation.

Dom continued relentlessly - like he was in pursuit of a recalcitrant mark, almost, except that he had that fervour to him that was always sincere. "First we have to define what you want. Then we can work it into a practical state. We hammer out the details and anywhere there's a suitable gap, I will help.

"Arthur. I'll do _anything_. You deserve no less."

Dom made the promise before it could get fended off, and Arthur's response came out the same way: "Don't do this to me. Don't just go and give me everything I want." 

He left it at that. It was a dumb impulse, but he kind of wanted Dom to read into it the way Arthur was already reading into this conversation. Besides, he couldn't stop his voice from trembling right now and so couldn't really speak.

"Whatever is in my power to do and will help you, I will make that happen," Dom said. "And I still have connections. I managed to get your burner phone number, didn't I?" he said lightly, which probably meant he'd just asked Ariadne.

He kept talking, kept planning. Arthur remembered this. This dedicated preoccupation and the dramatics around it. This was how Dom got about Mal. Before and After.

This wasn't how Dom interacted with him, or necessarily how he'd wanted Dom to treat him.

Now that he had it anyway...

There were solid reasons to avoid Dom, but Arthur's mind was fixed solidly on the problem of figuring out if he _did_ have what he thought he had now: Dom's focus stable and, somehow, set square on him.

"You don't have to answer right away," Dom said finally.

"I mean, I'd have to make some arrangements, first, if I did."

"Yeah, of course. Please, please think about it. That's all I'll really ask of you. Arthur, it would be so good to see you."

When the call was over and he put the phone down, the sound of a passing car merely made the quiet seem deeper.

He'd go. Dom's absence had been something Arthur had tip-toed around in his thoughts day-to-day for the past month, and with contact it was too much to stand. And with it being the kind of contact that made it sound as if Dom had noticed what had been directly under his own nose... Well, it might not be that, even now, Arthur reminded himself. He had barely let himself acknowledge all of what he wanted while Dom was still steeped in grief - doing anything would have been sordid and made life even more miserable for both of them. All the same, he'd sometimes felt utterly obvious just in wanting to stay close, in trying to be a stabilising force and in putting so much into their partnership.

Whether or not he'd been obvious, he at least had the right to go to Dom's home again. Just checking on him would be a relief, and talking to him while feeling less defensive and more prepared would be even better. Even if Arthur had been completely discreet and Dom's tendency to block things out had held true over the years, Dom could still tell pretty damn well when something inside him had restructured itself. And if it had restructured around Arthur, if now Dom felt the wrongness that required a deeper look - a real change...

Dinner gifts, he decided. It had been an emphasised feature of the conversation that Dom was serious about the dinner invite, and had found a great Indian restaurant that ought to satisfy Arthur with a favourite dish or two as supplement to what Dom would cook himself. So dinner gifts were the first step. A bottle of wine. A novelty keychain from behind the motel reception desk.

He smiled first, enough to put a twinge in a cheek, got up and tried to wipe it away, and then went straight into action. Dom had always tended to inspire him that way.


End file.
